This invention relates to the Internet and more particularly to a method and system for monitoring the use of the Internet by users and generating profile data for use in targeting users according to their interests.
Users of Internet services (xe2x80x9cUsersxe2x80x9d) now include families, children, business people, students, hobbyists and enthusiasts of all types. They use the Internet from home, work and school.
Users of Internet services (xe2x80x9cServicesxe2x80x9d) are rapidly becoming familiar with (and are beginning to expect) new Services for xe2x80x9cfree.xe2x80x9d These xe2x80x9cfreexe2x80x9d systems and Services are able to provide low-cost applications and services by supporting their infrastructures through the use of, and exploitation of, large audiences. The Services provide an infrastructure into which marketing and advertising companies (xe2x80x9cAdvertisersxe2x80x9d) market their products and services through the placement of on-line promotional offers and on-line advertisements (xe2x80x9cOffersxe2x80x9d). This model is similar to the ubiquitous network TV model of free programming, with commercial breaks. Even paid-for Services on the Internet have begun xe2x80x9cminingxe2x80x9d this source of value, through placing advertisements in key locations. Offers have begun to take on a variety of forms, including Web-based banner ads, e-mails, pop-up screens and video interstitials. Additionally, Services have begun to use more traditional means to target Offers, including print campaigns, radio and direct mail.
Examples of these Services on the Internet include xe2x80x9cfreexe2x80x9d search engines and directories such as Yahoo and Infoseek, xe2x80x9cfreexe2x80x9d e-mail systems such as HotMail, xe2x80x9cfreexe2x80x9d instant messaging systems such as ICQ and xe2x80x9cfreexe2x80x9d information broadcast systems such as PointCast Network.
The revenue generated by these Services in 1997 was nearly $1 billion and was in large part generated by charging Advertisers on a xe2x80x9cthousands of impressionsxe2x80x9d model. This is commonly understood in the advertising industry as selling advertisements by xe2x80x9cCPMxe2x80x9dxe2x80x94a measure of 1,000 xe2x80x9cimpressions.xe2x80x9d Impressions are counted as one impression for each time a potential customer of the Advertiser""s product sees the Offer. This is commonly understood in the Internet industry as xe2x80x9cpage views.xe2x80x9d Common xe2x80x9cpage viewxe2x80x9d prices currently range from $10 to $400 per 1,000 CPM (one million page views).
The CPM price varies widely, based on the appropriateness (or demographic match) of the User to the Offer. For example, the CPM price for an Internet search service that caters to the broadest categories of Users may command a very low CPM such as $20. The CPM price for a highly targeted audience, such as a membership-based medical information Web site that has a well-known group of subscribers suffering from a specific disease, may run as high as $450. The economics of these models work to drive specific Advertisers to specific Services. For example, drug and health product Advertisers can justify paying $450 per CPM on health-specific sites, because they are able to reach highly targeted audiences that have a great match and affinity to their Offer.
However, the economic model presented by many Services to Advertisers is highly inefficient. Advertising on Services such as Web sites generally generate between a 1% and 10% response rate, with 2% as a typical response rate. There are numerous reasons for poor response rates such as 2%, including poor or unappealing designs of the Offer, but one of the main reasons for poor response rates is simply that an Offer is tendered to Users who have no interest in the product, service and/or subject matter. For example, Advertisers of golfing equipment or luxury automobiles have little assurance that placing Offers on Services such as CNN.com or Time Warner""s pathfinder.com will result in their messages reaching a high percentage of their target audiences.
Services can provide extremely attractive mediums for Advertisers by improving the match between the subject of the Offer and a User""s interests. A small improvement in response rate for Advertisers, even as small as 2%, can substantially improve the economics of placing Offers in Services. Thus Advertisers and Services have great interest in techniques of measuring and improving the match of Offer to User. These techniques are known as xe2x80x9cOffer targeting.xe2x80x9d With improved Offer targeting, Services can profit dramatically by sharing in the improved performance by increasing the CPM price for their systems.
Some Services have attempted to improve the efficiency of their Offer targeting through manual means. These have included manual organization of Services into known topic areas that Advertisers may select to place offers into. This strategy works somewhat when the content delivered by Services is well known and easily classed into categories or is static in nature. This approach does not work well for a dynamic medium with huge sets of rapidly changing content and the content is out of the control of the Servicexe2x80x94which are attributes of the World Wide Web.
Other targeting techniques include requiring Users to specify their interest categories manually. These systems may work for small numbers of well-understood information content areas but are not practical for Services that span the breadth of the Internet. Furthermore, manual systems of specifying preferences are cumbersome for Users, which they subsequently abandon. This results in inaccurate preferences, misleading preferences or obsolete preferences, causing a mismatch between actual User interests and the information captured in manual preferences systems.
In view of the foregoing background, one object of the present invention is to improve the match between User interests and Advertisers"" messages by transparently assessing the type of information that a User reviews over time.
Another object of the invention is to create a xe2x80x9cprofilexe2x80x9d of interests of the User, which may be used to subsequently direct Offers.
A further object of the invention is to target Offers to individuals who have indirectly expressed interest in specific subject matter.
A more general object of this invention is to provide a higher User response rate per CPM.
According to one aspect of the invention, a method and system of this invention provides for profiling a User of the Internet according to predefined categories of interest that includes the following steps: First, content information of an Internet User is scanned to generate unknown data. This step takes place at any number of locations: the client""s server, the client""s computer or at an Internet hub. Next, the unknown data are processed to determine their relevance to predefined categories of interest. These categories include, for example, sports, games, business, investing, health, hobbies, technology, arts, politics, social issues, weather and news. Moreover, the relevance is indicated in a matching rating system, analyzing attributes such as length of time reviewing content information, frequency of encounter, recency, strength and closeness. With comparisons such as these, the method generates a match of the unknown data with the predefined categories to form a profile of the User.
To form a xe2x80x9crecognizerxe2x80x9d for use in profiling Internet User interests, the method and system of this invention includes collecting representative data sets of major areas of interests and processing the data sets by algorithms and weighted rules to form a recognizer. The above-described profiling may occur in real time or be delayed and may occur on the client""s installation or remotely, for example, on a server installation.
Therefore, the objects of this invention are accomplished through a method system that scans information content and automatically and transparently assesses its subject matter. Over time, this invention accumulates a xe2x80x9cprofilexe2x80x9d of interests of the User, which can be used to subsequently direct Offers.
An advantage of this invention is that it enables Services to target offers to individuals who have indirectly expressed interest in specific subject matter. For example, this will enable Services to automatically and transparently determine which Users have an interest in topics such as golf, luxury cars, medical information, sports equipment, music, etc. These topics are merely illustrative and not limiting. Once the Service has determined these preferences, it may then direct appropriate and matching advertising Offers to those Users.
Another advantage of this invention will be a higher response rate per CPM, i.e., golf advertisements will be shown only to those Service Users who have a strong interest in golf, as determined in the profile generated by Petitioner""s technology.
Additional objects and advantages of this invention will be apparent from the following detailed description of preferred embodiments thereof, which proceeds with reference to the accompanying drawings.